Snapshot Oneshot
by subdivided
Summary: Collection of short but complete! Loveless fanfic. Stories are between 100 and 1000 words long. Ratings, pairings, characters vary.
1. Sensation Threshold

**Title**: Sensation Threshold

**Author**: subdivided  
**Rating**: R for topics unsuitable for children  
**Characters**: Ritsuka and his therapist   
**Note**: There are a lot of addicts in Japan. This is just an observation. 

-**SENSATION THRESHOLD-**

She most definitely didn't think that the look of gratitude in Ritsuka's eyes was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Though it was satisfying. Moments like this were the reason she'd become a psychiatrist.

"So it's normal?"

"Completely normal," she agreed. "Many people feel that way."

"...you're probably lying a little, but thanks, Sensei."

She smiled back at him, knowing to overlook the words and respond to the sentiment. Ritsuka was a bright, perceptive, vulnerable, good-hearted kid. If he was skeptical, it wasn't because he didn't trust her. 

And anyway, he was right: she _had_ been hoping to make him feel better. That was part of her job.

"Let me put it this way," she said. "While it may not be usual, it's not _abnormal_. It's just another kind addiction. Many people have addictive personalities: chain smokers, drug addicts, compulsive gamblers, extreme hobbyists, work addicts, thrill seekers. From society's standpoint, some of these activities are acceptable while others are not, but from a medical standpoint, they're all caused by the same thing."

"What's that, Sensei?"

"A higher threshold of sensation. While most people, for instance, will feel a rush of pleasure betting twenty or thirty dollars at a pachinko parlor, some people won't feel anything until they risk everything they own. Some people stop after one or two drinks, others aren't happy until they're dangerously intoxicated. It might not be healthy, but it isn't incomprehensibly bizarre. What do you think?"

"I think that makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Sensei."

"Glad I could help."

Some people are happy hearing "I love you," Ritsuka thought. Other people aren't happy until your name is carved into their chest with a hot needle. It might not be healthy, but...


	2. Cigaretta

**Title**: Cigaretta

**Author**: subdivided  
**Rating**: PG13 for mindgames  
**Characters**: Ritsu, Soubi.  
**Note**: Underaged smoking is bad!

**-CIGARETTA-  
**

Maybe he'd done it because Ritsu had told him not to, who could tell. Ritsu caught him with the evidence, a pair of scissors in his hand and a small, circular hand mirror with roses on the handle propped in front of him. He'd wedged it cleverly between the wall and some old filing cabinet; it was the perfect height and angle to reflect the cracked vanity mirror behind him. The mirror reflected Soubi's straw-colored hair, which was short and even all the way around.

Very neatly done. He was impressed.

Ritsu looked on mildly from the doorway, allowing Soubi the first word. Soubi, an old hand at this game, said nothing, though when Ritsu had first opened the door to the storeroom he'd been so startled he'd nearly stabbed himself with the scissors. He reached behind himself to lay them on the vanity. The movement stirred a cloud of dust.

"Ritsu-sensei," he said, eventually.

"I told you to keep your hair long," Ritsu said, in the tone of one stating a fact.

"I felt like changing it," Soubi said, trying for the same equanimity and failing. "I don't have to listen to you, you aren't my Sacrifice." He'd learned enough to keep his shoulders from hunching forward defensibly, but he couldn't help the ears, which lay back almost flat against his skull, or the tail, which bristled.

Ritsu would miss those. He was, at best, an indifferent judge of mood or character -- but with only a basic knowledge of adolescent psychology, it was possible to judge by ears and tail alone the mental state of most of the individuals who had them. Only the naturally reticent had any measure of control over the core mental processes that controlled such reactions; Soubi had none. He practically broadcast his thoughts with them.

Which was why, sooner or later, the ears had to go.

"Are you going to punish me?" Soubi asked. His hands, clasped together in his lap, trembled.

Ritsu was an indifferent judge of mood and character, but he wasn't blind. There was no way he could miss the eagerness in Soubi's posture, or the hopeful look in his eyes. 

"No," he said. "I don't think I am."

Soubi drooped.

Ritsu pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, in a completely unscripted show of nonchalance. "You don't deserve to be punished," he continued, mercilessly. "And I don't have the authority to punish you. As you said, I'm not your Sacrifice. In fact," -- he paused thoughtfully here, to inhale, then exhale a lungful of smoke -- "I shouldn't have told you how to keep your hair in the first place."

"Does that mean I have your permission?" Soubi asked. He reached up to nervously brush his hair back from his face, and seemed startled when there wasn't more of it.

"It means you don't need it," Ritsu corrected. "I have no stake in any part of you, aside your training. As long as you remain fit for that, I don't care what you do with yourself. It's none of my business."

Soubi looked at him. Ritsu couldn't decipher the look, though to be honest he wasn't really trying. It really _wasn't_ any of his business. On a whim, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the package of cigarettes.

"Want one?" he asked, holding them out to Soubi.

Soubi hesitated, then reached into the pack to withdraw a single cigarette with slender, boyish fingers. He put it to his mouth with the same movement he'd seen Ritsu use many times before, and Ritsu lit it for him.

When he inhaled, he didn't choke or gasp. He held the lungful long enough to burn. When he exhaled, he closed his eyes. Ritsu tapped the ash from his own cigarette.

"Progress check. Why did you take the cigarette?"

Soubi's response was automatic. "Because I was curious."

Ritsu nodded. "Clear. Anything else?"

"Because it was something to do." 

"Clear. Anything else?"

"Because..." For the first time, Soubi hesitated. "Because it was Ritsu-sensei who offered."

"That's no good. You can't get attached to me, I'm not your Sacrifice. I wonder what I should do."

This time, Soubi didn't tremble. "Are you going to punish me?"

It was a better acting job than Ritsu would have credited him for, but it wouldn't work.

"No," Ritsu said. "I think that part of the training is over. It doesn't have the same effect anymore."


	3. Progress Report

**Title**: Progress Report

**Author**: subdivided  
**Rating**: G  
**Characters**: Nagisa, Seven, Ritsu  
**Note**: The stuff about butterflies is true. 

-**PROGRESS REPORT-**

Her story was full of holes. If her project had really been sabotaged, where was the evidence? Or the motive? On the other hand, the directors argued, she didn't gain anything by lying about it. She was guaranteed funding, access to equipment, manpower, either way. _Regardless_ of success or failure. The reports were only a formality.

(None of them liked progress reports. They made Nagisa defensive, prone to wild overstatements and unnecessary allocations of blame. Seven couldn't take them seriously, because secretly - not so secretly - she found all attempts to make their organization more like a conventional _daibatsu_ hilarious. Ritsu considered them invalid and never bothered with them. True progress is often proceeded by decay, he was fond of saying. The one time he was called to task, he sent a report in the form of a living chrysalis. The message was: cut this open, and you won't get a half-formed butterfly. All you'll get is a dying caterpillar.)


	4. Obedience

**Title**: Obedience  
**Author**: subdivided  
**Rating**: PG   
**Characters**: Ritsu, Nagisa  
**Note**: I have kidnapped Ritsu-sensei and replaced him with someone more talkative. Written for the Chain of Fics livejournal community, I had to start with the line "You horrible creature, Bogarting is only for cigarettes."

**-OBEDIENCE-**

"You horrible creature!"

"Bogarting is only for cigarettes," Ritsu said. He waved an arm in the general direction of the wires tangled on the floor. "These are office supplies."

Dr. Nagisa made a show of stomping her foot, a wasted gesture as Dr. Ritsu had yet to look up from his computer screen. "Don't argue definitions with me! Whether you call it bogarting or thieving or hoarding or whatever, I was using this converter!"

"Which is why it was in the spare parts room, I suppose."

Nagisa was cornered, but she managed a quick recovery. "That was temporary! Until I could put it to good use!"

"Hmmm" Ritsu said, as if he didn't much care.

"Better use than you," Nagisa said. "Whatever you're doing, it could not possible be as vital as the research I'm doing."

Ritsu didn't even reply, only took another long drag from the cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"Nothing to say? Becuase you know I'm right? In that case I'll just take this, since I need it more than you do." She reached for the converter, which was on and humming a little.

"I'm using that," Ritsu said.

Nagisa smiled sweetly, her hand an inch from the plug. "Weren't you listening? So am I. For important things."

With great deliberation, Ritsu closed the cover on his laptop. _Finally._ He brought one hand up to the cigarette in his mouth, looking on with a contemplative expression -- but, infuriatingly, still not at Nagisa.

"Your projects are a waste of time," he said.

Nagisa snorted. "Says the man whose "greatest work" is a failure. You know why, right?"

"No," Ritsu said, sounding bored. "But I suspect you're going to tell me." He still wouldn't look at her, but was instead admiring the wall to her left. Nagisa turned to look -- it was covered in framed blue butterflies. Supposedly he'd bought them. Nagisa could understand the urge to pin helpless creatures to a piece of Styrofoam, to watch them die; what she couldn't understand was Ritsu's clinical fascination with the corpses.

She shook herself back to the topic at hand. "Your toy Fighter does exactly as he pleases. 'Absolute obedience'? Don't make me laugh! He's like a lawyer, always twisting his orders around. In his last Battle-"

"Exactly."

"...what?"

Ritsu ground out his cigarette. "I'll tell you a secret," he said, "if you agree to go away."

Nagisa huffed. "It had better be good."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Soubi," he said, beginning with the obvious, "is the perfect fighter _because_ he twists around the words and makes them work for him. To him, words, orders, are absolute. But he thinks within the system for a way to turn them to his advantage."

As Nagisa should already have known. This was basic. He was already regretting his offer -- telling this woman _anything_ would be a waste of time.

"He's too independent," she said. "If it was me-"

"You would have failed. I know this, because I used to think I'd failed with Soubi." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nagisa perk up. No doubt she was interested by his mention of failure; such a petty woman. Ritsu decided to finish the wtory quickly. The sooner he finished, the sooner she'd be out of his office.

"I didn't know what I had, when I singled him out for intensive training. I thought I'd made a mistake, picking someone so strong-willed to break. No matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of his sense of self. The training program was never completed. In the end, I gave him away to someone who didn't deserve him."

Nagisa rolled her eyes. "Does this story have a point? Or are you going to wax poetic about Agatsuma Soubi until I agree that he's perfect just to make you stop?"

A petty and _impatient_ woman. "Do you remember the Fighter I trained after Soubi?"

"No..."

"I picked someone with less will. Then I completely eradicated it. No opinions. No desires. Technically proficient, a precise Word user, would follow orders without question. His Sacrifice was from a wealthy family and was used to ordering other people around. The pair was a complete success, but..."

"But?"

Ritsu smiled fondly. "They were unstoppable in battle, but...poor Siegfried, he was much too literal. 'Go take a hike,' and he would actually take a hike. 'Bathe more often,' and he would camp out at the public baths for a week, to emerge looking like a prune. He was once arrested for stealing a kite. His sacrifice thought it was funny."

"What do kites have to do with anything?"

Ritsu just looked at her, until she flushed and murmured, "Never mind, I get it now."

Ritsu doubted it. But he was wasting enough of his time already; he wasn't going to waste even _more_ explaining such a simple thing. He continued the story.

"One day, after a particularly hard battle, they argued. It's impossible to say what happened exactly. But one thing is clear: Siegfried was told to 'just go die,' so he bit off his tongue. He was dead within the minute, while his sacrifice looked on. The poor rich boy committed suicide soon after."

Nagisa looked a bit shocked at that. For once, she had no smart comment to contribute.

Ritsu leaned over and gently pried her fingers away from the power cord. "And that's why Soubi is my masterpiece. To have gone through the training I put him through, and still emerged with the will he has, well. It's a remarkable thing.

"Now go away."

On her way out the door, Dr. Nagisa turned to say: "You really are sick, you know that?"

"So I've heard."


	5. Hypnosis

**Title**: Hypnosis  
**Author**: subdivided  
**Rating**: G  
**Characters**: Ritsuka and his therapist  
**Note**: Lalala, everything I know about hypnosis I learned from popular fiction.

**-HYPNOSIS-**

"Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?"

Ritsuka looked up from his hands, folded in front of him. He shrugged with one shoulder. "Not really. Mom wants to know when the next hypnosis session will be."

She made a show of flipping through her appointment book. "Let me check...next month, it looks like. Possibly longer." If it had been up to her, the answer would have been _never_.

"That's late."

"Ritsuka, you don't really like those sessions, do you?"

"I don't mind them. It's only-"

"Yes?" she prompted, when he didn't continue.

"I don't like the feeling of not being in control. But if it helps to bring the old Ritsuka back, it's worth it."

"Hmmmm." She steepled her hands in front of her. Ritsuka looked back at her from the couch, frankly. He was very serious for someone whose feet didn't reach the ground. "It's not exactly like that. Hypnosis can reach a deeper level of consciousness, but only if you allow it to. Additionally, your unconscious mind is still you - it can't be persuaded to do anything you wouldn't do."

Ritsuka's mouth quirked. "Careful, Sensei. It sounds like you're saying I'm _purposefully_ resisting. Or that there is no old Ritsuka. If my mother heard that, she'd lose it."

She smiled back at him. "I didn't mean it that way. We both know you want this to work. Whatever's blocking the hypnosis, it isn't something you have any control over. But Ritsuka-" she hesitated.

"Sensei?"

Ritsuka responded remarkably well to rational explanations. He resisted therapeutic lies or half-truths, and hated being told he was too young, too fragile, or too ignorant to understand something. He didn't shy away from unpleasant truths, and he always spoke honestly. It was sometimes hard to believe to believe he was only thirteen - she'd met adults who were less level-headed.

Therefore, she reasoned, telling him what she was worried about would be beneficial.

"Hypnosis is only a tool, it isn't a solution. And it's dangerous. Although we might eventually break through to your old memories, your old personality, hypnosis won't fix whatever it was that caused them to be buried in the first place. As a matter of fact, it will only exacerbate the problem - deepening the gulf between your conscious and unconscious mind will make you more likely to respond the same way to future trauma. And then we'll be right back where we started."

She paused, waiting to see how he'd take it. This level of openness with a patient, while not unheard of, was generally not advisable. In the case of children, especially, conventional wisdom was that she only say what a child _needed_ to hear, not what he or she might like to hear. Ritsuka was looking down at his hands again. Had she made a mistake?

He looked up at her with a conspiratorial grin. "I know. I checked some books out of the library. Hypnosis is interesting."

Well, then. "I see! You're really smart, Ritsuka."

"I just like to know what's going on."

"Wanting to know what's going on _is_ smart."

Though he ducked his head to hide it, she could tell that he was blushing. "Nnnnn."

Glancing at the clock above Ritsuka's head to see how much time was left, she was surprised to see that this week's session had ended three minutes ago. That was too bad -- talking with Ritsuka was interesting. Letting the regret she was feeling show in her voice, she said, "I'm sorry, it looks like that's all we have time for today. I'll see you next week, though, right?"

"Right." Ritsuka gathered his things and headed for the exit. He paused at the door, said, "Sensei?"

"Yes, Ritsuka?"

"Thanks for being honest with me."

**-END-**


	6. The Anti OTP

**Title**: The Anti OTP  
**Author: **subdivided  
**Series**: Loveless   
**Summary**: Soubi takes Ritsuka shopping  
**Note**: Written for tin's "subvert your OTP" challenge. I tried to write this as traumatically as possible...

Someone (rin-ren-ran) commented that it was strange that Ritsuka and Soubi had yet to be mentioned in the same chapter. The reason for this is that I am actually writing a multi-chapter Ritsuka/Soubi fic, though sadly, it's stalled. I'll post it here if I ever manage to finish.

In other words: I DO SHIP SOUBI AND RITSUKA. Really! Just, er, not in this fic.

**-THE ANTI-OTP-**

Sometimes Soubi doesn't remember to keep their games inside the bedroom.

They're shopping for furniture for Ritsuka's dormitory room. Ritsuka thinks this is unnecessary. He's only going to high school, not moving into his own apartment; meals and a very basic set of desk, chair, bookshelf, bed and mattress will be provided. It won't be a bad set either. The last time he'd seen Soubi he'd pointed out, reasonably he thought, that his social worker had succeeded in convincing his mother to enroll him at St. Michael's precisely _because_ of the academy's reputation for spoiling its students rotten. He won't need to cook his own food. He won't need to clean his own room. He won't even need to do his own laundry. In Misaki's universe, Ritsuka is still eleven and incapable of caring for himself.

But Soubi, the hedonist, had insisted that wasn't good enough. He'd wanted deep, comfortable rugs to cover the grey tiled floor and bright, patterned fabric to cover the plain white walls. He'd talked about throw pillows and end tables and ornamental lamps. Ritsuka had accused him of wanting to turn his room into a bordello.

"You'd look sexy in a dressing gown," Soubi had agreed. "You could draw the curtains closed, bolt the door, order me down on the carpet and take me hard from behind without even taking it off."

Ritsuka hates it when Soubi does this. The constant insinuations, the way every conversation seems to circle around to sex, the unrelenting _perversion_ of Soubi's fantasies make him uncomfortable. He's tired of being the owner, the bad cop, the immoral teacher, or even just the one in control. He longs for what they had in elementary school, when Soubi's awareness of their age difference, his bottomless reserve of self-control, had held him back.

Ritsuka is sixteen, and there's nothing holding Soubi back now.

"Look," he says, taking one of Ritsuka's hands in his own -- they are nearly the same size -- and guiding it to the carved headboard of the bed they are examining. Ritsuka revels in the simple contact but dreads what's going to come next. "You could tie me to this."

"That's-"

"With your school tie," Soubi says, staring into his eyes like there's nothing else. His gaze is heavy-lidded and penetrating, and Ritsuka is already off-balance because Soubi's arms are still longer, and he's holding Ritsuka's hand so far over the bed, it's all Ritsuka can do to keep from falling onto it and taking Soubi with him. His face is burning and if he still had his ears, they'd be all the way back. Soubi is so close, he can feel himself reacting, and he knew this would happen. It always does.

"Soubi," he manages to get out.

"Hmmm?"

"We're not buying it. And we're in public! Let go of me."

Soubi complies instantly -- he always does that too -- and smiles at him like they're sharing a secret. Something small and precious in Ritsuka's chest warms to that smile. It's a fluttery feeling, delicate as a butterfly's wing.

But he isn't deaf or insensible to his surroundings, and he can hear what the other shoppers are saying. He's so embarrassed he could die; he wants to melt into the floor and disappear. The butterfly struggles valiantly to free itself from the oozing black tar of scandalized disapproval, then with a final spasm dies, is covered over, might as well have never existed at all.

Once upon a time, when Ritsuka had been young and innocent -- or at least innocent enough not to know that "role-play" didn't just mean video games -- he'd thought things would be better if he overcame his nervousness and did the things Soubi wanted but would never, ever ask of him. They'd be closer. Their purity of their bond would increase.

But there's nothing "pure" about Soubi's desires. Worse than the physical abuse is what it implies -- about him, about Soubi. Ritsuka tries to tell himself it doesn't matter, it's only pretend, but the bloodstains are real and lately he feels like they'll never wash off.

The worst thing of all is that they don't turn him on.

But he loves Soubi, so he pretends. It's all pretend anyway, right? That's why when Soubi says something mortifying -- like he'd done over the phone, or like he's doing right now -- Ritsuka pretends that he's aroused and only a little embarrassed, and hides the degradation.

There's a black chasm at the edges of his mind. On the nights when he's alone, he can feel his sanity unraveling like an ornamental rug.


End file.
